Sharon Green - The Warrior Rearmed

“Would you repeat that statement?” I said, letting my stare burn into him as I shifted in the grass. “I’d like to be absolutely sure I heard right before I kill you dead where you stand.”

He turned a faint frown in my direction, not understanding immediately, then the dawn arrived to erase the dripping frown and fill his light eyes with memory. Not too many days earlier, Len had helped Tammad punish me for the experimenting I’d done, telling me how foolish and dangerous it was for an empath to do something like that. He’d frightened me so badly that I still shuddered when I thought about it; now he had the nerve to complain that we weren’t doing enough of the very thing he’d been so dead set against. I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of him, but he got his parry in first.

“You still haven’t said what you were going to say about my shield,” he interrupted, letting the words come out calm and interested as he wiped his face with his forearm. “Do you have a suggestion for improving it?”

“The only suggestion I have for you would be anatomically difficult!” I snapped, rising onto my knees with my fists clenched. “You put me through hell, and then calmly decide that you’ve changed your mind? I think I’ll decide to beat you over the head with something!”

“I haven’t changed my mind the way you mean it,” he said, still maintaining that infuriating calm. “We need to experiment with our abilities, but inside ourselves, not on other people. Experimenting on the people around you is a good way of committing suicide.”

“Len, there is no other way of experimenting except on the people around us!” I insisted. “Being an empath means interacting with other people; you can’t interact all by yourself! And that shield you’re forcing didn’t do much to keep Garth with you when you two and Tammad were captured, now did it? You had to work directly on the men who captured you, didn’t you? You took a chance to get what you wanted, and it paid off without anyone knowing you did anything, now didn’t it?”

“I was lucky,” he said, his tone as flat as the look in his eyes was decisive. “I could just as easily have gotten caught—and lynched for it. It’s a risk I won’t take again until I get a lot better with this sword I’ve been given, and maybe not even then. Now, what did you mean about my ‘forcing’ my shield?”

I stared at him for a minute without answering, wishing I could deep probe him without his knowing about it. Was he really that afraid of using his abilities, or was he trying to talk me out of using mine? We both knew I was a lot stronger than he; was he just trying to keep me manageable by scaring me? I didn’t know what difference the answer would make, but I would have enjoyed knowing the truth.

“The shield you’re projecting is almost a physical effort,” I said at last, settling back on my heels. “You’re pushing up on a cloud of confusion to hide your thoughts and feelings, rather than using an actual shield. Try relaxing completely and then sensing around yourself. Do you feel something hovering just past awareness, something your mind is automatically pushing away and keeping unformed?”

Len frowned where he crouched by the pond, as he searched around inside himself, his search a struggle I could feel as I reached toward him with my own mind. I couldn’t help him with the struggle, it was something he had to do for himself, but guiding him was another story.

“You’re pushing too hard,” I said in a murmur, passing on some calm to ease the tightness and anxiety he was falling into. “Relax a little more and let the sensations come to you rather than chasing after them. Softly, gently, relax and become aware.”

“I think I have it,” he gasped after another minute, the sweat of non-physical exertion mingling with the drops of pond water on his face. “It’s like a sheer bubble I’ve been keeping at arm’s length without knowing it. It doesn’t take any effort to keep it away; the effort comes in when I think about bringing it close. Just as if it were on a spring.”

“You don’t need effort to bring it close,” I denied, remembering my own first tries with the shield. “If you try to force it close you’ll lose your grip on it. Just let it come close, as if you were allowing the sensation of sweet, fresh air touching your skin to enter your awareness. It’s hovering there, waiting for permission to ease close. Give it permission, Len.”

His handsome face had tightened because of the struggle, matching the fists his hands had become where his arms rested across his thighs. His entire body showed a forced rigidity—until suddenly it was completely gone, and a look of surprised pleasure covered his face.

“It’s easy!” he exclaimed with the delight of a child, his mind now tightly enclosed by a smooth, shining, impervious sphere. “You don’t have to hold it up, you don’t have to force it; it’s the next thing to a magical wish. Decide that you want it and it’s there. ”

“It sure is,” I said, for the first time able to examine a shield from the outside. It seemed totally untouchable, and I began to wonder how smart I’d been in helping Len form it. If I couldn’t figure out some way of breaking through it, I’d never be able to touch him mentally again without his permission. The thought was beginning to bother me, but suddenly I pushed it away with disgust. The day I became convinced I had to reach and control everyone in range was the day I needed to be stopped permanently.

“It’s beautiful,” Len breathed, bringing my attention back to the calm pleasure he showed. “Just as beautiful and natural as you are, Terry. I can understand why Tammad would risk his life to keep you. If he weren’t around, I’d take a stab at it myself. I still haven’t forgotten how good you were in the Hamarda camp.”

For the second time that day I opened my mouth to shout at him, but that time I didn’t need anyone else to interrupt me. I’d run out of words to say to that particular sentiment a long time ago, leaving me with nothing but a very strong awareness of how much I was wanted for what I could do rather than what sort of person I was. I stared at him for the briefest instant before standing up and turning away, but I hadn’t gone more than four steps before he was right behind me, his big hands on my arms pulling me to a halt.

“You ought to know by now that being told how desirable you are isn’t something you can run away from on this world,” he said, his tone more amused than annoyed that that was exactly what I’d tried to do. He turned me around to face him again, but his grin faded and died when he saw the silent tears rolling down my cheeks. I may have hated that world and its ways, but in that one respect it was no different from any other world in the Amalgamation. Everyone wanted me—but not for the right reasons.

“Terry, why are you crying?” Len asked, gently pulling me closer to his chest and putting his arms around me in comfort. “You know I won’t touch you without Tammad’s permission, and neither will any other man around here. I was just trying to tell you how I feel, in the way that’s most natural in this culture. It’s supposed to please you—not make you cry.”

His hand coaxed my head down onto his chest, but I stood there stiffly even as the flow of tears increased, beyond all comforting and consolation. The pretty green and gold day had become covered over with the dingy gray of personal disillusionment, one I couldn’t bring myself to accept. Even Len—who should have been an exception—wanted me only for my abilities. Len’s breath drew in sharply as his mind touched mine, and then his hand was at my face, raising it to the concern in his eyes.

“Why are you hurting like that?” he demanded, his new shield quiveringly ready to snap tight. “Nothing I said should have caused you such pain! Terry, tell me what I did to hurt you!”